It’s a jungle out there…
…and that’s where I’m heading for a week of chillaxation and adventure. I’ll be on the lookout for wonderful food, drinks and cute animals and will share my stories when I get back. Have a great week! -Sara
Archive for March, 2007
Sarsaparilla…And Make It Snappy!
For six years, I lived on the same Williamsburg block as the Manhattan Special Soda Bottling Company. Naturally, when I first moved to the area, I tried their signature drink, the Espresso Coffee Soda. It was exactly what I expected and I couldn’t stand the stuff. While this beverage is considered a holy sacrament, firmly engrained in the taste memories of generations of Brooklynites, carbonated coffee is the quintessential love-hate kind of thing. However, I did enjoy hearing the clinkity-clink of glass bottles on the snaking conveyor belt as they were filled with the tar-like drink. Read the rest of this entry »
Rewind to Chrusciki
You may know them as elephant ears, pig’s ears, faworki, bow ties, angel wings or twisters, but in Polish cuisine, all refer to an airy cookie called chrusciki.
I hadn’t thought about chrusciki in years, but I wandered into a Polish meat market yesterday and saw something in the window that was deep-fried and covered in sugar and asked about it.
“What is that deep-fried thing over there?” I pointed. Read the rest of this entry »
Schmear Factor: Why I Like Bialys Better Than Bagels
Big bagels offend me. I dislike their sponginess, and the difficulty of getting a thorough toasting when each half is two inches thick. I resent that a bagel requires an entire cup of cream cheese, just to create a basecoat that spans the diameter of each half. Yet a fatty topping is sometimes necessary to obscure the tasteless mass of cumbersome, dense bread. All that heft, yet after eating a colossal bagel, I’m unfulfilled.*
At a time when bagels, like so many foods, have tripled in size, I’ve been opting lately for the bialy, a more streamlined, sprightly breakfast option. Originating in the 17th century, a bialy is a simple round roll with a depression in the middle, usually sprinkled Read the rest of this entry »
Best Ka’ak On the Block: Mansoura’s Pastries
After the Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, they dispersed to areas throughout the Mediterranean, Balkans, Africa and the Near East bringing with them their bright, elegant, Arab-influenced cuisine. Brooklyn’s Sephardic Jewish neighborhood, located in the vicinity of Ocean Parkway and Avenue P, features many shops specializing in the divine treats of this sumptuous culinary tradition. I stopped by Mansoura’s, a family-owned pastry shop that’s been in Brooklyn for over 50 years. Before that, however, the Mansoura name was a legend in the family’s native Cairo where Isaac Read the rest of this entry »
Royal Crown Bakery Has One Tough Cookie To Beat
Last weekend’s mission to Borough Park was a sweet success thanks to the Italian sandwich butter cookies at Royal Crown Bakery, one of the top bakeries in Brooklyn.
Apart from being one of my favorites at bakery counters, I don’t know much about the sandwich butter cookie, except that its two layers are glued together with raspberry jam, and locked on one end with a dip of chocolate and multicolor sprinkles. As Italian cuisine is primo when it comes to cookies (the toothsome antidote to espresso), Brooklyn’s Italian bakeries always showcase the generically-named “butter cookies” as well as biscotti, Read the rest of this entry »
Jerk City
Like I always say, just because there’s a layer of bulletproof glass between you and a restaurant kitchen, doesn’t mean they’re not serving up some fantastic food. God knows, I’ve met my share of jerks. And I’m honestly not a big chicken fan either (despite writing about it twice in the last two weeks) but I’m cultivating a meaningful and healthy relationship with Jerk City’s jerk chicken, which may be my favorite chicken of all time. A local winner that’s no stranger to food critics, the staff (and customers) are as sweet as their tutti frutti cake.
Jerk City does a largely to-go business, but I’d definitely consider calling them to cater a summertime bash. At 9 dollars, their medium order of jerk chicken can Read the rest of this entry »
Passover Treat: Coconut Macaroons
Strolling down Court Street last weekend, I stopped into Marquet Patisserie in search of something sweet, small and delicious to go. From their selection of classic French offerings like croissants, madeleines and quiche, I settled on some decidedly un-French coconut macaroons. While the original macaroon made from almonds originated in 18th-Century France, the coconut “haystack” version may have come from Italian Jews who soon after introduced the cookie to the Ashkenazim, Eastern European Jews. (The word ‘macaroon’ may come from the Italian word maccarone which is Italian for paste). The flourless Read the rest of this entry »
Leave the Gun. Take the Cannoli.
Take the cannoli: a round, deep-fried pastry shell filled with a sweet ricotta cheese mixture that’s freckled with tiny chocolate chips. A Sicilian specialty, cannoli were traditionally made for February’s carnival festivities, but this world-renowned dessert is now popular all year round. Cannoli’s criss-crossing history is difficult to unravel. Its origins can be traced back to pre-Christian times and their tubular shape may reference Druid fertility symbols. Read the rest of this entry »
Off the Wagon: Chicken Wings
Due to the grossness factor of noxious mutant chicken parts, I rarely eat chicken. Recently, however, the idea of hot buffalo wings with thick blue cheese sauce and cold beer sounded pretty irresistible. Brooklyn has some solid wing options in restaurants and bars, particularly Bonnie’s Grill, highly praised for their buffalo wings. But I wanted to try a place that specialized exclusively in chicken wings. I soon found myself at Wing Wagon, where I’d hoped to get messy with a mound of bona fide chicken wings.
Your choices in a chicken wing establishment are level of heat (mild to Chernobyl), wing form (the standard “flats and drums” or “fingers”), sides (hardly necessary), and the sauce (always blue cheese). Other wing joint offerings such as Read the rest of this entry »
